Waffling in Murder (The Diner of the Dead Series Book 20)

by Carolyn Q. Hunter

  “No, no,” Belinda whispered, her dark hair spreading out from her head in tangled knots like growing weeds. “I didn’t want anyone but you to come up here because I am the witch.”

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  Belinda smirked, finding the situation humorous. It was the first time Sonja had seen her really smile since finding her out in the woods.

  Sonja realized she was visibly shaking now, literally trembling in the presence of the witch who had taunted and tortured her and the residents of Haunted Falls over the past year—maybe longer.

  It had been Belinda all along.

  “I’ll show you how to find my home,” she laughed, now looking terrible, as if she truly had spent over a month out in the woods without a shower. Her hair was full of dirt encrusted nests, her fingernails were dark with mud, and her skin was splotchy.

  With a wave of her finger, a fire sprouted out of the ashes in the pit, like a weed sprouting from the ground. Slowly, it grew and grew until it reached a fever pitch of inferno—appearing like a pillar.

  As the fire parted, a small brick building appeared in the woods across the clearing where the trees had once stood. There were no windows, but a single hanging wood sign said Wickerman Antiques on it.

  “The antique store,” Sonja gasped. Over the past year, both Frank and a young teenage girl named Cass had found a strange antique shop and bought merchandise from it. Both items were haunted in some way, possessing supernatural powers.

  However, both times when Sonja had gone to find the antique store, it was gone—as if nothing had ever been there.

  “The very one,” Belinda giggled.

  “How?”

  “I’ve worked for many years to collect an assortment of powerful objects. The more knowledge I have and the more possessions, the more powerful I can become. I just shared a few of my rarities with you and your friends.”

  “All those strange gifts, too?”

  “Those too,” she smiled wickedly, showing yellowed teeth. They were vile and difficult to look at. It was almost as if some sort of spell that had kept her looking beautiful was wearing off.

  “But how did it appear in Haunted Falls?”

  Belinda clapped her hands excitedly. “You have so much to learn, my dear. A simple matter of altering the mind, creating a little illusion so that you think you are in one place but are really in another.”

  “Why? Why are you doing all of this?” Sonja begged for an answer.

  With a flick of her hand, the door on the building opened of its own accord. “Why don’t you come in and sit down for some tea with me. We can discuss it then.”

  “I’m not much of a tea person. I like coffee.”

  “It’s not an invitation. It’s an order.”

  Sonja took a step backward. “If you think that I’m going to in there, you’re wrong.”

  Reaching into one of her sleeves, the witch pulled out a knife. “Am I?”

  “You think you can scare me?” Sonja challenged her, knowing full well that she could run away before the witch could get close enough with the knife.

  Again, Belinda flipped her wrist. The knife jutted from her hand and stopped only inches away from Sonja’s nose, hanging in midair as if by a string.

  Sonja’s heart thudded in her chest, making her feel slightly lightheaded. “Okay, okay. I’m coming.”

  “I thought you’d see reason,” she mused, motioning with her finger and bringing the knife back.

  Reluctantly, Sonja headed into the dark entryway of the building, unsure of what to expect in the coming moments. Once inside, the door slammed plunging them into darkness. For a moment, Sonja panicked. She wanted to run, to hide, to do anything to get out of the blackness surrounding her.

  Luckily, the interior lights came on.

  The room was filled to the brim with junk. Shelves full of random trinkets, jewelry, and statues made it feel claustrophobic. In the center of the room was a round table, set for tea with an ancient looking china set. The teapot lifted itself off the table and poured.

  “Have a seat while I get our other guest,” Belinda instructed.

  “Other guest?” Sonja asked. Her mind raced, trying to think of who this crazy woman, a woman who she assumed was her friend, had captured. Was it Frank? Maybe Bethany?

  “I said sit,” she ordered, moving off up a twisting wood staircase.

  Sonja quickly moved over and slid into one of the rickety old chairs. One of the teacups, now filled, moved over to where she sat as if willing her to drink it. Unless she was forced, however, there was no way she was drinking from cursed china. There was no telling what kind of powers it may have.

  A minute later, Belinda walked down the stairs, leading someone with a burlap sack over their head. Sonja squinted, trying to make out any defining features. With a glance, she could tell it was a woman.

  “Oh no, Alison,” Sonja gasped, believing she had figured it out.

  “Hardly,” Belinda corrected her, sitting the mystery woman in a chair next to Sonja. In addition to being bagged, her hands were tied behind her back.

  She still couldn’t figure out who it was.

  “Sonja, I believe you have met my sister,” the witch said, grabbing the bag and removing it from her head.

  Sonja let out a startled cry as she saw the woman underneath.

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  “Belinda?” Sonja murmured, recognizing her face. Her mouth was gagged to keep her from talking, but it most certainly was Sonja’s friend, Belinda . . . again. However, unlike her ragged counterpart, this one only looked tired and worn out.

  Her eyes had an apologetic look to them.

  Confused, she looked from one woman, then back to the other again. Suddenly, it clicked. Bethany’s ghost story. It had to be true. “You’re the twin sisters from the story I heard at the campfire last night.”

  “Right you are,” the witch announced, taking a seat and setting the knife on the table in front of her.

  Sonja pointed at the ragged looking Belinda. “Which means you must be the one that a witch stole and took off into the night.”

  “Right again,” she cackled.

  “And Belinda, my Belinda that I’ve been working with this whole time, moved to Haunted Falls with her father to be close to where you disappeared.”

  “My name is actually Malinda, by the way.”

  This explained so much about Belinda’s life growing up. Her father had pulled her out of school when she’d started having an interest in the occult and was claiming to see ghosts. He was scared she was turning into a witch, too.

  It all made sense.

  “But, who was the witch the stole you and killed your mother? Why did she take you?” Sonja asked, trying to piece together this morbid family history.

  Malinda sneered. “Unfortunately, just when she had a chance to come back again, you stopped that.”

  It dawned on Sonja. “The witch from last Halloween,” she gasped. Sonja had exorcised the spirit of a witch that was trying to come back from the grave. That witch was Malinda’s teacher.

  “The very one. She was like a mother to me, taught me the craft. If she’d managed to complete her journey back to this world, we would have been the most powerful beings on this planet, but you saw that it didn’t happen.” She narrowed her gaze on Sonja. “Instead, I’ll just have to settle for you.”

  “For me? I don’t understand. I thought you got all your power from the pain and anger of a violent death. That’s why you’ve been hanging around Haunted Falls, around me, so you could soak up that power.”

  The witch held up a finger. “You are partially correct, my dear. I do gain power from violence. Why else would I facilitate all these murders, give people tools they would never dream of having otherwise? It was a fun game in its own right.”

  “You think murder is a game?” she snapped.

  “However, it’s not enough, not for the kind of power I want.”

  “Then
why do you need me still?” Sonja asked. As far as she knew, the witch was only hanging around because Sonja’s ability to communicate with the dead had the unwitting side effect of drawing in criminals and murderers into her midst.

  “For your power, of course. At this point, I’ve mastered a few things. First of all, how to change my appearance. Even down to morphing my fingerprints to match my sister’s.” She held up her hands and wiggled all her fingers.

  “Fingerprints,” Sonja gasped. Did that mean the fingerprints found on the rifle belonged to Belinda?

  “I also can create temporary illusions, such as making my strange little collection of antiques appear on Main Street in Haunted Falls? Or hiding this place from the wandering eye.” She pointed a finger at Belinda. “She figured out how to undo my illusion with a fire spell. Someone spotted the smoke and then that unfortunate ranger came up my way. Of course, I had to kill him.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “You have no idea,” she said, her voice growing deep and graveling. “For a while, I even had a magical portal into the subbasement of the library in Haunted Falls. I had a little altar and ceremony room down there. It made it easy to get around.”

  “What do you need me for, then?” Sonja asked. In her opinion, the woman seemed very powerful already—too powerful.

  “Once I kill you and use your blood in a ritual of mine, I’ll have all of your power. Combined with mine, I’ll be the most powerful woman in the world. I can do whatever I want, control anyone I want.”

  “Why all the games then? Why did you take your time?”

  “I needed to save up my power, gain enough where I could perform the blood ritual.” She leaned forward and grabbed the knife from the table. “Now, I’m ready.”

  Out of the corner of her eyes, Sonja noticed Belinda twitching her hands, trying to get free from the ropes. If only Sonja could help pull on them without Malinda seeing, her friend could get free.

  Then what? Try to run and get stabbed by the floating knife?

  Sonja just wasn’t sure what to do next. Unfortunately, having Belinda free was their only chance of even trying to escape. She only hoped they could overpower the witch.

  Just as she was beginning to carefully, discreetly, reach toward the restraints, the door burst open.

  “What is this?” Malinda shouted.

  Frank and the lieutenant both were there, both with guns out.

  This distraction was their chance. Sonja pulled the gag and ropes loose at the same time. As soon as this happened, and before Malinda knew what had happened, Belinda whispered some strange otherworldly words.

  The knife in Malinda’s hands phased out of reality, disappearing and reappearing in her sister’s hand. Then, suddenly, Belinda struck her sister in the back.

  Screaming in mortal agony, the witch tried to grip at the unreachable knife sticking partway out from her spine. She struggled, things all around the room began to move, vibrate, and fly through the air, creating a storm of haunted antiques.

  “Get out of here,” Belinda cried, pushing Sonja toward the door.

  The men, completely confused by the paranormal chaos, also pushed out the door.

  Sonja glanced back, watching in horror as Malinda seemed to spontaneously combust into flames, catching all the dry wood shelves nearby on fire as well.

  Unable to bear another moment, Sonja pressed out into the sunlight of the clearing.

  When she looked back again, the store had vanished from existence.

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  “I’m not sure what I just saw, but you’re coming with me,” Lieutenant Doggs motioned to Belinda.

  “Wait, why?” Sonja protested.

  “I just saw this woman stab someone with a knife. I can’t just let that slide.”

  “Do you see a dead body?” Sonja argued.

  Doggs paused, looking back in the direction of the building. “Well, no. I can’t say I do.”

  “Then you can’t say that she just stabbed or murdered anyone.”

  “But I just saw it,” he barked.

  “Frank, did you see it?” Sonja pressed, putting him on the spot.

  The sheriff looked from Sonja, to Belinda, and to Doggs. “I’m not sure what I saw, honestly. It could have very well been nothing.”

  The lieutenant let out a huff. “Very well, since I can’t say for sure what just happened, and I don’t have solid evidence, I’m going to let it go for the moment.” He held out a finger, shaking it at the women. “But mark my words, as soon as I get a chance, I’m bringing up a whole brigade of my men to comb this area, and if I find one, even one scrap of evidence, I will use it.”

  “Understood,” Sonja nodded.

  “And what is your name?” he asked Belinda.

  “Belinda Smith.”

  “I won’t forget it.” Turning, he headed back down the mountain.

  Sonja let out a heavy sigh. “How did you guys find us?”

  “We weren’t looking for you. We were trying to track how far the body was dragged. The trail led us up to that weird building,” Frank admitted.

  “It was partially my doing. I had unsealed her illusion spell so that the next time she made the building reappear, she wouldn’t be able to make it disappear again. That’s how the men found us,” Belinda informed them.

  “I’m glad you showed up when you did.”

  There was a pause as Frank glanced back toward the tree line where the building had stood.

  “So . . . what exactly did we just see?”

  Sonja smiled. “It’s a long story.”

  * * *

  Despite the terror and chaos of the day, Sonja still managed to get everything ready for the award ceremony that night. Belinda offered her help.

  “But you should go home and get some rest,” Sonja had argued.

  Belinda didn’t care. After a good meal and a short nap in one of the cabins, she was more than ready to help in any way she could, claiming it would be a refreshing break to spend some time with Sonja.

  “So, you’ve spent over a month tracking her down?” Sonja asked as she stirred a large bowlful of batter in the Welcome Hall’s kitchen. It was an industrial kind of place, but worked for their needs.

  Belinda stood over by the stove, stirring a large pot of melted chocolate. “That’s right. It all culminated in me finding the doorway through her illusion two nights ago. I figured how to open it and stepped inside. Unfortunately, she was waiting for me.”

  Sonja hesitated on her next question. “Did you know she was your sister?”

  Belinda frowned. “No. I had no idea about my family history or any of it until she told me. I hoped maybe she was lying, but she wasn’t.”

  “Scary. That must be really hard for you.”

  “Shocking, really, but in the end, she was evil. I’m not even sure if I could truly call her a sister in any sense of the word.”

  “I guess not.” Sonja poured batter into the multiple waffle irons plugged in along the wall and closed the lids to allow them to cook.

  “Speaking of witches, what was that little bit of chanting you did in there? It looked like you cast a spell.”

  Belinda’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  “It was magic, wasn’t it?”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Okay, I know I’ve been telling you this whole time that I only can talk to ghosts because I studied and practiced my whole life. Well, that’s only partially true.”

  Sonja pulled open a large box filled with bagged marshmallows. “What do you mean?”

  “Witchcraft runs in my family, I learned. It was just dormant for several generations. I think the witch you banished last Halloween really was some sort of great, great aunt of mine or something—living on for years through dark magic. Anyway, it means I have capabilities to use witchcraft, cast spells.”

  Sonja checked the waffles. Not quite done yet. Next, she turned to a bowl of broken graham crackers. “Should I be worried?”
<
br />   “No, no, of course not. I would never use dark magic, and I would never draw power from other people’s pain.”

  “Like your sister?”

  “Right.”

  Sonja used a pastry blender to begin bulldozing the crackers into smaller bits. “So, how do you get power for your magic then?”

  “Very slowly, from nature, from the moon, sources like that. It just means I can’t ever do anything super powerful, and I have to really study, work, and concentrate to do small things—like perform seances and talk to ghosts.”

  “I get it. So, you’re like a good witch or something?”

  Leaving the pot of chocolate for a moment, Belinda walked over and put an arm over Sonja’s shoulders. “It means, we’re not that much different.”

  Sonja smiled at her friend. “I knew that woman couldn’t be you from the moment she popped out of the bushes. Something was really off with her.”

  “Like most witches, she was evil and power hungry.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Sonja groaned, finishing grinding the crackers.

  The waffle irons dinged, and Sonja rushed over to pull them out onto plates. “Even though she was your sister, I’m glad she’s finally gone for good. Maybe now life can be a little more normal.”

  “We can only hope,” Belinda agreed, helping to plate the waffles.

  Sonja grabbed the bowl of crackers and sprinkled the crumbs over the top of the hot waffles.

  “But I wouldn’t hold my breath. After all, I’m a witch and you’re a medium,” she pointed out.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Sonja noted, breaking off a full square of chocolate and placing it in the center of one of the waffles. Next, came the marshmallow, placed delicately on top of the chocolate bar.

  “How can it be a s’mores waffle if the marshmallow isn’t toasted?”

  “This is how,” Sonja announced, pulling out a chef’s torch and igniting the blue flame. A few runs over the marshmallow at just the right speed and distance made it a perfect golden brown. “And last but not least, the drizzle.”